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JVhy We Fight Germany 



BY 



WOODROW WILSON 



Being the President's Addresses Relating to the 

Great War and His Reply to the 

Pope's Peace Proposal. 



W ^ 



INTRODUCTION BY 
PROFESSOR JAMES W. GARNER 

Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois. 
Copyrighted, U. of I. Supply Store 



AND AN ARTICLE 

THE GREAT WAR: FROM SPECTATOR TO PARTICIPANT 

BY 

PROF. ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN 

Professor of History, 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



EDITOR, FRANK D. GARLAND 



M 17 1918 ©CIA481453 



-J1 & 13 



Introduction 



PROFESSOR JAMES W. GARNER. 
Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois. 



Many of the state papers of President Wilson, like those of 
President Lincoln, will take high rank as literary masterpieces. 
Lincoln's addresses and messages were characterized by extra- 
ordinary forcefulness, beauty and simplicity of style and pro- 
fundity of thought. Untrained in the schools, he was, never- 
theless, a master in the use of English. He had the rare gift 
of stripping a great truth of useless verbiage and sophistry 
of clothing it in vigorous forceful language and of presenting it in 
its legal nakedness so that it nearly always carried conviction 
to a frank and open mind. His native humor, the homeliness of 
his philosophy and the high moral purpose which permeated his 
appeals were quite irresistible. Mr. Wilson, a scholar by train- 
in and endowed by nature with rare literary gifts, probably ex- 
cels his great predecessor in his ability to clothe his thoughts, 
even as to commonplace matters, in languag'e characterized by 
high literary charm, although in either respects his power of ex- 
pression may not equal that of Lincoln. But whatever may be 
the opinion of literary critics on this point all students of Eng- 
lish literature will agree that many of Mr. Wilson's messages 
and papers may be profitably studied not only as models of lit- 
erary style but for the lofty sentiment, the spirit of justice and 
the fine sense of diplomatic courtesy which pervade them. With 
this thought in view the publishers of this collection with the 
advice and co-operation of professor Frank W. Scott have se- 
lected a few of the typical addresses and diplomatic notes of 
the President for study and criticism by the classes in English 
in the University of Illinois. Every endeavor has been made 
to procure authentic copies of the papers here published. 

League to Enforce Peace.—^ln the first of these addresses 
President Wilson speaking for himself, discloses his own 
thoughts to the Senate at a time when the United States was 
still a neutral power, regarding the interest of America in the 
outcome of the war. With indemnities, boundary readjustments 
and other matters between the contending belligerents the Unit- 
ed States was not at that time immediately concerned but it was 
directly concerned in seeing that whatever else was done the 
basis for an enduring peace should be laid and adequate guar- 



Why We Fight Germany 



antees be provided against the recurrence in the future of such 
catastrophes, as that which the world is now witnessing and in 
which the greater part of the world is now taking part. 

To the achievement of such a task America could not re- 
main an indifferent spectator; it was "inconceivable that the 
people of the United States should play no part in that great 
enterprise." The so called League to Enforce Peace seemed to 
be the most practicable remedy against the recurrence of such 
cataclysms as the present world-wide war ; it had received the 
endorsement of many governments ; it was therefore the duty 
of the American government to lend its authority and its power 
to that of other nations to secure effective guarantees for the 
maintenance of peace and justice throughout the world. What- 
ever terms the various belligerents might agree upon among 
themselves at the close of the war, those terms must embrace 
conditions which would insure permanent peace, and in the de- 
termination of this "Covenant" America must have a voice. No 
mere settlement of the disputes which brought about the war 
would he sufficient; it was absolutely necessary that an ade- 
quate force be created through international concert which could 
be employed to restrain any single nation or group of nations 
from again disturbing the peace of the world. This force must 
have as its basis a league of nations in which America with 
the others would be a member. Membership in such a league, 
as Mr. Wilson pointed out, would involve no abandonment of 
our traditional policy in regard to entangling alliances but 
rather co-operation for the better attainment of the things for 
which America has always stood. Finally, President Wilson 
suggests certain principles which must be recognized and given 
effect to in the treaty of peace if the peace is to be lasting and 
secure. First of all, it must be founded on the principle of 
equality of rights among all nations, great and small. In the 
second place no peace can be lasting which does not recognize 
the principle embodied in the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, that governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. In short, there can be no adequate 
guarantee against war so long as a portion of the world is 
governed by irresponsible autocracies and so long as certain 
races are held in subjection and ruled without their consent 
and without any share in the determination of the form of gov- 
ernment to which they are subject and with no voice in. the 
selection of their rulers. Again, recognition of the principle 
of the freedom of the seas is a sine qua non to peaceful relations 
among states. The oceans must be regarded as the common 



Introduction 



highway of nations which the vessels of all states may traverse 
without molestation or interference. This right must belong 
to small states as well as to the great maritime powers and in- 
land states should be allowed free access to the seas wherever 
possible by the neutralization of navigable rivers which flow 
through other states before emptying into the seas. 

Finally the President throws out the suggestion that the 
permanent peace of the world might be promoted by the lim- 
itation of military and naval armaments since there can be no 
sense of security and equality among nations so long as some 
of them maintain powerful armaments intended to be employ- 
ed for aggression upon the rights of other nations. 

Severance of Diplomatic Relations With Germany. — In 
the second address here published, the President after 
briefly reviewing our controversy with Germany regardin,^ 
the sinking of merchant vessels carrying American citizens an- 
nounced that he had broken off diplomatic relations with the 
German government. Almost from the outset the German Gov- 
ernment, contrary to the international conventions, contrary to 
the usuages of maritime warfare in the past and contrary evon 
to the provisions of the German prize code itself, had authorized 
its submarine commanders to sink whenever possible and without 
warning enemy merchant vessels within certain great zones 
of the ocean. In consequence of this inhumane and unpreced- 
ented method of warfare not only thousands of unoffending non- 
combatant enemy subjects, men, women and children, but even 
hundreds of neutral nationality were sent to their deaths while 
peacefully navigating the high seas for the freedom of which the 
German government claimed to be fighting. Among the per- 
sons of neutral nationality, who were thus murdered while in- 
nocently traversing the ocean were more than 200 American, cit- 
izens. In consequence of the vigorous protest of President 
V/llson and his threat that Germany would be held to a strict 
accountability the German government gave in succession two 
pledges that in the future its submarine commanders would 
refrain from sinking merchant vessels without giving warning 
and without providing for the safety of the crews and passen- 
gers on board. The German government, however, did not 
strictly observe either pledge ; again and again merchant ves- 
sels were sunk without warning often with the loss of many 
innocent lives ; and even when the submarine commanders pro- 
vided for the safety of those on board it often consisted merely 
of setting them adrift in small life boats, sometimes hundreds 
of miles from land, leaving them to die of hunger, thirst, ex- 



Why We Fight Germany 



posure to the rigors of winter weather or to be washed over 
board by rough seas and drowned in the ocean. Finally, all 
promises were thrown to the winds and in January 1917, the 
German government notified the government of the United 
States that in consequence of a "new situation" having arisen it 
would no longer be bound by its previous pledges and it would 
therefore sink whenever possible and without warning not only 
enemy merchant vessels but every neutral vessel as well, en- 
countered in a great zone embracing more than one million 
square miles of the open seas. By way of special concession, 
however, one American merchant vessel would be allowed to 
pass through the forbidden zone each week provided it arrived 
at Falmouth on Sunday and departed on Wednesday and pro- 
vided it bore certain marks and flew certain colors prescribed 
by the German government. Thus the German government 
undertook to close to all vessels whether of neutral or enemy 
nationality a large portion of the high seas the freedom of 
which it has never ceased to proclaim by word. As to the 
special concession offered to American vessels within the barred 
zone the conditions were so humiliating that no nation could 
for a moment submit to them without surrendering one of its 
heretofore universally recognized rights and without sacrificing 
its honor and dignity. The government of the United States and 
the governments of all other nations would have been entirely 
justified in taking up arms to resist such a flagrant and unpre- 
cedented act of aggression upon the rights of all mankind. The 
least that any self respecting government could do was to re- 
fuse to continue diplomatic relations with a government which 
neither respected its own solemn promises nor observed the 
long established law of nations. The President of the United 
States who had all along assumed that he was dealing with a 
government which still cared something for its own honor and 
which still wished to conform to tlie laws of humanity and of 
nations, exercised a patience and a forbearance with Germany 
rarely equalled in the history of diplomatic intercourse. Now 
convinced, however, that the German Government could not 
be trusted to keep its most solemn pledges and convinced also 
that it no longer had any intention of respecting the rights of 
neutrals the President decided that he could no longer hold 
friendly intercourse with such a government and he therefore 
dismissed the German ambassador at Washington and recalled 
the American ambassador from Berlin. A goodly number of 
other neutral governments followed the example of the Ameri- 



Introduction 



can government and broke off diplomatic relations with Ger- 
many. 

Armed Neutrality. — The third address is an appeal to Con- 
gress to authorize President to place arms and train- 
ed gunners on American merchant vessels in order 
to enable them to defend themselves against destruc- 
tion by German submarines. As the President stated 
in his address, he no doubt already had authority to do this 
but he desired to have the approval of the legislative branch 
because, since the German government had served notice on 
neutral governments that it would regard all armed merchant 
vessels as war ships, would sink them without warning and 
treat their crews as pirates instead of as prisoners of war, it 
was almost certain that the measure which the President pro- 
posed would lead to war with Germany. For more than 200 
years merchant vessels had followed the practice of carrying 
small arms for defense against pirates and privateers and no 
government had ever contested the legality of the practice. 
Now, however, the German government put forward the argu- 
ment that since piracy had disappeared from the seas and priv- 
ateering had been abolished by international agreement, the old 
rule allowing the carrying of armament for defensive purposes 
had ceased to exist. The German contention was quite un- 
tenable for the right of defense had never been limited to at- 
tacks by pirates or privateers and in any case no single belliger- 
ent had any right to alter the existing rule. That could be done 
only by general agreement among nations. In fact the methods 
of the German submarines differed little from those of pirates in 
the old days ; if anything they were more cruel, for the motive of 
the pirate was robbery and he rarely or never sank a ship with 
the innocent passengers and crews. It was illogical therefore 
to argue that the right of defense was legal in the one case 
liut not permissible in the other. Under no circumstances were 
the arms which the President proposed to place on our merchant 
vessels to be used for offensive purposes ; they were to be em- 
ployed solely to repel illegal attacks by submarines of any and 
every nationalitj'. On account of the filibustering tactics 
of a small group of senators who professored to believe that the 
act of a neutral merchant vessel in defending itself against Ger- 
man submarines would constitute an act of war against Ger- 
many, Congress was prevented from giving the President the 
authority which he requested — this notwithstanding the fact that 
an overwhelming majority of both houses of Congress was in 
favor of the measure. Under these circumstances the President 



8 Why We Fight Germany 



felt justified in proceeding with his plan without an act of 
Congress and accordingly directions were issued to the Secre- 
tary of the Navy to supply all merchant vessels requesting them, 
with arms and expert gunners for purposes of defense. In ac- 
cordance with these instructions a large number* of ships were 
armed, but the whole situation was changed early in April 1917 
by the entrance of the United States into the war. 

The President's War Message. — In the fourth address 
here published the President advised Congress to rec- 
ognize that a state of war existed between the Unit- 
ed States and the German Government in consequence of 
the long series of outrages upon the national honor and upon 
the rights of the people of the United States. The policy of 
"armed neutrality" had proved impracticable as a measure to 
protect and to safe-guard American rights and the only alterna- 
tive remaining was war. The policy inaugurated by the German 
government on the first of February was in effect, as the Presi- 
dent justly observed, a war against all mankind. The vessels of 
no nations were to be allowed to exercise their immemorial 
right to traverse the high seas Hundreds of neutral merchant 
vessels had already been destroyed and their innocent passen- 
gers and crews sent to their deaths without warning and with- 
out even a poor chance to save themselves. More than 200 
American citizens, as already stated, were among the victims. All 
restrictions were now thrown aside by the German government 
and vessels of every character and nationality were to be ruth- 
lessly destroyed without any attempt to ^ave the lives of those 
on board. True to its threat, this policy of savagery was put 
into effect on February i, 191 7. Vessels laden with innocent 
cargoes equally with those carrying contraband, those in ballast 
returning home, those with cargoes consigned to neutral gov- 
ernments, even hospital ships and Belgian relief ships proceed- 
ing on missions of mercy and charity with their sick and wound- 
ed, with Red Cross physicians and nurses or with food for the 
sorely distressed people of Belgium were sent to the bottom of 
the sea without warning. This policy, as the President remark- 
ed, was a challenge to all mankind ; the gauntlet was thrown 
down to every nation whose ships sailed the oceans. Nothing 
remained for self respecting nations but take it up or to sub- 
mit 1.0 the dictates of a government which no longer pre- 
tended to respect the rights of neutr?.l nations or of inno- 
cent non-combatants. The small neutral nations of Europe 
which were so circumstanced that they could not defend their 
riarhts without incurring the sad fate of Belgium could hardly 



Ii\tre4uctiatv 



have doiie otherwise than submit.. But for the United States 
abject submission was impossible. A great nation capable of 
defending its rights but which would &ubmit to continued wrong 
and iniustice could hardly expect to remain permanently free 
and independent. Indeed it would not deserve to so remain. A 
nation which cares nothing for its honor and dignity and which 
will not lift its hand to protect the just rights of its citizens has 
sunk to depths which it may be confidently assumed that the peo- 
ple of America have not yet reached. No other alternative than 
that which the President proposed remained and Congress by 
an overwhelming majority voted to take up the gauntlet which 
the German government had thrown down and accordingly a 
resolution recognizing the existence of a state of war was adopt- 
ed, and measures taken to defend the nation against the con- 
tinued aggressions of Germany. 

(No Comment on the 5th Address) 

The Nation's Task And Duty. — The sixth address 
in this collection contains a statement of the nation's 
task and an appeal to the American people to do their 
part in order to insure the success of the great "enterprise" 
upon which the country had entered in taking up arms against 
Germany. As the President aptly remarked victory could not 
be achieved by the armies alone. Enormous quantities of food 
stuffs must be produced to feed not only our own people and 
their armies abroad but also to feed in large measure the Eur- 
opean nations with whom we were allied in a common cause. 
Equally large quantities of munitions and materials of war of 
every sort must be produced or manufactured. Farmers were 
therefore appealed to to plant larger crops, miners to produce 
more coal, manufacturers to work their industries to the limit. 
Every one must do his share toward the achievement of a com- 
mon task ; there must be no ' slackers" among producers any 
more than among the fighters. Dealers must forego unusual 
profits, the railways must see to it that the "arteries of the na- 
tion's life" suffer no obstruction ; the whole nation must "speak 
act and serve together." The appeal of the President made a 
strong impression upon the country and the response was re- 
freshing. As a result the output of the farms, the mines and 
the manufacturing industries was without precedent in the his- 
tory of the country. Thus did the nation take up the great task 
to which, as the President rightly said, we must devote our 



10 Why We Fight Germany 



selves with an energy, an enthusiasm and an intelligence that 
will "rise to the level of the enterprise itself." 

Our Grievancies Against Germany. — In the seventh ad- 
dress, delivered on the occasion of the celebration of 
flag day, the President dwelt upon the significance of 
the flag as the emblem of our unity, power, thought and 
purpose as a nation and reviewed the circumstances under 
which we were forced in to the war. He referred to the long 
series of German aggressions upon our rights and of the in- 
sults to the national honor : .the sinking of American vessels 
without excuse, the murder 'of unoffending American citizens 
who were traversing the high seas in the exercise of a right 
which no government had ever before challenged, the filling of 
our unsuspecting country with spies and emisaries, the organi- 
zation upon our territory of plots against our peace, and neu- 
trality, the destruction of factories and manufacturing establish- 
ments ; the attempt to blow up the ships of friendly nations in 
our ports and harbors, the endeavor to embroil us in war with 
Mexico and Japan, and other acts of a similar kind. For these ag- 
gressions the President held the German government alone re- 
sponsible ; we are, he said, not the enemies of the German people. 
They were subjects of an autocratic government not of their own 
choosing and over which they had no control. Germany was at 
war with the world not because the great German people so will- 
ed but because their irresponsible law-defying rulers had provok- 
ed it. Desiring to dominate the world and reduce to subjection 
other peoples as they had reduced to subjection their own, 
they had plunged not only Europe but a large part of the entire 
world into war and were endeavoring to make the German peo- 
ple believe it was for them a war of defense. 

As the President truthfully remarked the United States was 
forced into the war against its will, as many other nations had 
been forced in to it. The assertion of a small group of pacifists 
and German sympathizers that America's entrance into the war 
was provoked by capitalists, "commercial bandits" and manu- 
facturers of munitions is wholly without foundation as every 
intelligent person well knows. As Mr. Wilson well says, this is 
for us a peoples war. a war for freedom, for democracy, for 
international justice, for the preservation and perpetuity of a 
common civilization and for the protection of the rights of all 
mankind. If our wars against Great Britian in i8i2, against 
Mexico in 1846 and against Spain in 1898 were justifiable, our 
justication for taking up arms against Germany during the 
present war is a hundred times stronger and it maybe confident- 



Introduction 11 



ly predicted that this will be the impartial judgment of history. 
But in any case the question of justification is now merely an 
academic one. The fact is, whether rightly or wrongly, we are 
at war with a powerful autocracy which has shown itself to be 
largely without any sense of honor, which will not keep its most 
solemn engagements with other governments and which respects 
neither the law of nations nor the sacred principles of humanity. 
Under these circumstances it is the duty of all citizens who really 
love their country to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, for 
the achievement of a common task and he who endeavors to 
discredit the cause for which our country has taken up arms 
and to undermine the loyalty of the people is committing a 
wrong aginst the men who are going abroad to defend our 
rights — he is doing what no American who sincerely loves his 
country and desires the triumph of its cause will ever stoop to 
do. 

Reply to the Pope's Peace Proposals. — The eighth 
document in our collection, the President's reply to 
a communication addressed by the Pope on August i, 
1917 to all the belligerent governments suggesting certain peace 
proposals for their consideration, will rank among American 
state papers as a literary masterpiece. It contains a scathing 
indictment of the German government for its want of honor, 
its untrustworthiness and its flagrant disregard of the rights 
of nations and the principles of humanity. The President char- 
acterized it as a vast irresponsible military establishment which 
having secretly planned to dominate the world actually proceed- 
ed to carry out in a brutal manner its designs, without regard 
to treaty engagements, the long established practices of the past 
or the established law of nations. Again the President drew 
more sharply than ever before a distinction between the German 
people and the irresponsible autocracy which was their ruthless 
master and which bitter experience had shown could not be 
trusted to keep its pledges. While the American people, he 
went on to say, had suffered "intolerable wrongs" at the hands 
of the imperial government, they had no desire for revenge 
against the German people on account of the crimes of their 
rulers over whose conduct they had no control. So far as the 
people of the United States were concerned the object of the 
war was to deliver the free peoples of the world from the 
continued menace of this arrogant, butal and irresponsible pow- 
er. While the tone of the President's reply to the proposals of 
the Pope was courteous and dignified it was firm in its refusal 
not to have any dealings with such a government. What the 



12' 



Why We Fight Germany q q2Q 914 051 



world desired and what it must have was a stable and enduring 
peace and until the autocracy which had plunged four-fifths of 
the world into war, was destroyed no such peace was possible. 
No pledges which it might give and no guarantees which might 
be wrung from it could be depended upon, for as soon as its 
power was recovered it would proceed to repudiate them and 
the "agony would have to be gone through again." 

Although every heart not blinded and hardened by the terri- 
ble war would fervently wish to see the return of peace, no 
peace could be lasting unless it rested upon the faith and will 
of the German people themselves rather than upon the promis- 
es of a government which in the opinion of the President was 
morally bankrupt and its sense of honor gone. The test of an 
enduring peace was whether it rested upon the faith of a free 
people or upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing gov- 
ernment, which had so often broken its plighted faith with other 

nations. In the judgment of the President, therefore, it would 
be useless to discuss terms of peace with the imperial govern- 
ment; we must await 'some conclusive evidence of the will and 
purpose of the German people themselves." 

Urbana, Illinois. JAMES W. GARNER. 

Sept. 10, 1917. 



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